Firefighters extinguished a 3-acre vegetation fire in the Pacific Shores subdivision Sunday while deputies arrested the man suspected of lighting it. | File photo: Jessica C. Andrews

Mullins | DNSO

Deputies arrested a 35-year-old man suspected of lighting of five fires including one that burned more than 3 acres in the Pacific Shores area near Fort Dick on Sunday.

Law enforcement responded to a 911 call at about 3:30 p.m. from a citizen who said he had seen Justin Andrew Mullins allegedly try to light a fire near Pebble Beach, Del Norte County Sheriff Garrett Scott told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Monday.

The citizen followed Mullins and caught up with him on Tell Boulevard near Shutt Street in the Pacific Shores subdivision where he saw a “good size vegetation fire and several vegetation fires,” Scott said. Mullins was allegedly using a propane torch to start another blaze when the citizen called 911, according to the sheriff.

“The RP took video of him lighting one of the fires and this suspect, this Mullins, was wearing a wet suit when he was stopped by deputies,” Scott told the Outpost. “His plan was that if he was seen by law enforcement he would be able to run and jump in the ocean or in the water in these different locations.”

According to Scott, Fort Dick Fire, CalFire and Pelican Bay State Prison Fire responded to the blaze. The fire burned brush, scrub trees and smaller pine trees, Scott said. Though the area is sparsely populated, there are homes there, he said.

Mullins is still at the Del Norte County Jail facing charges of arson, being under the influence of a controlled substance and possessing a controlled substance. According to Scott, the suspect was allegedly under the influence of methamphetamines when deputies arrested him.

Deputies also found a glass pipe, about 1.5 grams of methamphetamine in a Ziploc baggie and a butane canister in a backpack allegedly belonging to Mullins.

The DNSO suspects Mullins of lighting five separate fires, but the others “didn’t really take off,” Scott said.

“That particular vegetation out there by the beach — it hasn’t rained for a week and so the wind blows through there so hard that it really dries that stuff out so quickly,” the sheriff said. “So that vegetation out there can really take off within just a week or so of dry weather.”

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